Three for the price of one! (158.8-175.5km)

What do you do when the kid is away and you can have a lie in? You get up early, rush breakfast, run to parkrun, run parkrun and run home from parkrun. Of course you do!

With three runs combined into one to make a big long run I felt like part of a story, the beginning, middle and end. It certainly felt like that with run one getting me to my race and run three getting me home from run two, the parkrun sandwich.

Segmenting a long run into three discrete sections allowed me to run quicker over each of the three. Runs of six, five and five and a half kilometres individually are an opportunity to stretch the legs and do some speed work, I think that was how I treated each run this time around. Separate, only loosely connected.

Sure, I had a rest phase between each segment, but running six kilos in just over half an hour followed by a 26 minute parkrun are quickish individual runs for me, never mind back to back.

The run home was a bit slower, enjoyably so as I had company. A fellow CJ joined me and as we chatted the concentration levels dropped and with it the speed but after he peeled off the old pace was back.

Which leads me to a dilemma, do I give it a blast at the Surrey half and properly try to smash my pb or do I keep a safe steady pace? Answers on a postcard to the usual address!